by Rose David
Great, now my “master” was mad at me. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to freak out. It’s just that I don’t know if I can do that. The world peace thing.”
Sean stepped forward. For a second, it seemed like he was going to sit beside me, but he changed direction and eased into the computer chair, instead. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I told you, I’m not a regular genie. I’m sort of... mixed or whatever. I don’t really know what my limits are. It’s not like I use my powers all the time.”
Just to get out of public speaking, I thought.
“Okay,” he said. “What would happen if you couldn’t give me what I wished for?”
I bit my lip. “When I don’t grant wishes right away, I get sick and stuff. If you wish for something that big, I don’t know what’ll happen if I can’t do it.”
Sean nodded, his brow creasing thoughtfully. After a minute, he said, “So, no world peace?”
“No world peace,” I repeated. Relief loosened the knot in my belly, and I smiled a little.
He shrugged, one corner of his mouth turning up. “Eh... Don’t worry about it.”
“No, really. Thanks. That’s cool of you.”
Sean shrugged again. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but I thought I saw his cheeks go pink for a split second.
I tilted my head. Was it my imagination, or had I just convinced Sean not to wish for something? As the silence ebbed between us, I pulled my gaze down to my lap, marveling at the contrast between the bright pink terry cloth and the darker blue of Sean’s blanket. It was too bad I hadn’t brought my camera, but what girl carries one of those when she’s taking a bubble bath?
Never mind. Don’t answer that.
“Wait a second,” I said, looking back up at Sean. “How did I get here, anyway?”
“I don’t know. You just kind of...” He made a zapping sound and gestured to the bed.
“Really?” I felt a little spark of hope. “You didn’t like, wish me here, did you?”
Sean shook his head.
“Weird. I didn’t wish myself here,” I said. “I would have at least put on pants before I did.”
He smiled. “You sure? I kinda like this outfit.”
My face got hot, either from embarrassment or annoyance. Probably both. “Wanna wear it to school tomorrow? Because I think the pink would really bring out your eyes.”
“I was just kidding.”
“Wow, you’re so funny,” I said dully. “We still don’t know how the hell I got here, though.”
“Yeah, that is kinda weird. You know, I didn’t think you’d be into Hello Ki--” He stopped, comprehension breaking over his face. “It was the ring. I was rubbing it.”
I stiffened. “You were what-ing it?”
“Cleaning it,” he corrected. “Maybe that’s how I’m supposed to, I don’t know, summon you or something.”
“Charming. I’m pretty sure a text message would work, too, Fabry.”
He frowned at my ring, which was still in his palm. “Hey, go into the hallway for a second.”
“Why?”
“I want to test something.”
I scoffed. “So you can teleport me back? No way!”
Sean’s jaw went slack in what I now recognized as his Thinking Face. If he let his mouth hang open any wider, something might fly in. Maybe I could wish for that, since technically I was messing with an insect and not my “master.”
“Aren’t you supposed to do what I tell you?” he asked.
“Excuse me? What is this,” I said, “the fifties?”
“But you’re a genie.”
“Oh my gawd, Fabry! I can’t believe you just said that!”
Sean groaned and raked a hand through his brownish hair. Annoyingly, this only made it look even more charmingly tousled. “I can’t handle this,” he said. “I can’t deal with anymore pressure right now.”
“What?” I asked. “Did they discontinue your favorite brand of hair gel this week?”
Sean smirked. “This is hard, okay? I don’t want to screw up the universe or something.”
“Fine. Then why don’t we just wish for three pizzas and call it a day?”
He actually seemed to consider that for a second, but shook his head. “No, I can’t.”
Of course not, I thought. Don’t make things easy or anything.
“I’ve got to use my wishes for something important. If I don’t...” He sighed. “Look, I need some time to figure stuff out. How long do I have?”
It was tempting to lie and say that his wishes were due to expire in about ten minutes. That was one way to get my ring back in a hurry. Unfortunately, given his track record, making Sean hurry would only lead to more half-baked, impossible wishes.
I sighed. “Take your time, I guess.”
#
“I wish that I were back inside my bedroom, completely unharmed and intact,” I said.
A moment later, I was bouncing off my own bed.
I crept to the door and opened it a crack. The sounds of Mom and Dad’s rented movie piped up to my ears, and I smiled. If they had realized I was gone, they would both be yelling at the police to hurry up and come look for me.
I shut the door and padded over to the bathroom. Most of the bubbles had dissolved into a pinkish white film, but the appetizing scent still clung to the air. Breathing in deep, I let the sweet smell flood into my brain, a welcome distraction from my thoughts of Sean Fabry.
As I dipped a toe into the bathtub, I winced. The water had turned cold.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next morning, I yearned to fake sick with a well-placed cough and a heating pad to the forehead, but having a doctor for a mom doesn’t really work well for that.
I blinked into the fluorescent lights of the school hallway, my eyelids heavy from lack of sleep. I had spent most of the night worrying about big wishes and a life of migraines, not to mention what my parents would do to me. If they found out about my mistake, I could forget about camp this summer--Mom and Dad would be locking me in the house with no visitation rights until my thirtieth birthday.
Now that I was at school, I felt like everyone was looking at me. It probably had more to do with my grumpiness and the frightening state of my hair, but I couldn’t help worrying that the entire school was now wondering what their three wishes would be.
I didn’t think Sean had told anyone else, but I couldn’t be sure, and I couldn’t exactly wish for him not to. For all I knew, he had called all his stupid soccer buddies and told them about his new pet genie. His pervy friend, Todd Griffin, would probably start by summoning a stack of porn, then move on to global domination.
After that, I assumed he would circle back and ask for another stack of porn.
The thought of Sean passing my ring around like a party favor should have had me bouncing off the ceiling, but somehow, I stayed on the ground. Strangely, I didn’t think Todd Griffin would have me donning a belly shirt and harem pants anytime soon. Sean had backed off pretty quickly on the world peace thing, so maybe he wasn’t so bad.
Maybe.
Or (maybe) my brain was just too fried to think straight.
I stared into my grizzly reflection in the small mirror in my locker, wondering why I had suddenly decided that Sean and I were buddies. “It doesn’t make sense,” I muttered.
A bright red blur behind me signaled Natalie’s arrival. “What doesn’t make sense?”
“Nothing. Just last night’s homework.” I slammed my locker, and we started to walk toward our first class.
“I know, right? I mean, I like Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare. He’s a great guy.”
Despite my grouchiness, a smile played at my mouth. “You’re just not in love with him?”
“Funny. I just think that reading plays isn’t very satisfying. They’re meant to be performed. Speaking of which...” She handed me a piece of paper. “It’s tomorrow. What do you think?”
Amateurs Wanted: Dead or Alive! anno
unced the flyer. In smaller text below, it added, ...but preferably alive.
“Another open mic night?” I said.
“Yeah.” Natalie took back the flyer. “Raj invited me last night. He’s doing some guitar stuff. You should come.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I had a feeling that Raj would have preferred to be alone with Natalie, but it really wasn’t my place to say it.
“So, hey,” Nat said, uncertainty creeping into her voice. “About last night.”
A lie sprung to my lips with surprising ease. “I’m feeling a lot better,” I said. “Whatever it was, Mom said it must have been a twenty-four-hour thing.”
“Oh, sure.” Natalie bit her lip.
As I came to a stop outside the classroom, so did she. I raised an eyebrow. “Nat? What’s up?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.” Which, of course, meant the exact opposite.
I tried to figure out with any possible problems, and this time, my gut did tighten. “Did Rajesh tell you last night?” I asked.
Nat’s eyes widened. “Tell me what?”
Crap, I thought. Hurry, backspace, backspace! “I, umm... Nothing. I don’t know,” was my articulate response.
At least it was better than, “Oh, you mean he didn’t tell you about the big crush he has on you?” Rajesh and I had never talked about it, but it was obvious to everyone that he was into Natalie. The only person who didn’t seem to notice was Natalie herself.
“Raj says he saw you in the parking lot with Sean Fabry,” she said. “I mean, he thinks he saw you. Is that true?”
All of the sudden, the remains of my drowsiness had burned away, and I felt as wide-awake as I would have with three Venti Mocha Frappuccinos in me. As my brain uttered a string of panic-laced expletives, I shook my head. “Absolutely not. No.”
“So you weren’t in the parking lot?”
“I guess I was, kind of.” Damn, where was that freaking backspace when I needed it?
“So you were there?”
“Umm...” I started.
Say something, you psycho!
In one gust of breath, I replied, “I wasn’t feeling well so I had to walk through the parking lot. You know, because I was on my way home. Because I was sick.” I tried to smile.
Natalie’s eyebrows came together for a thoughtful moment. “Oh, okay.”
“And Sean Fabry was definitely not there,” I added.
“That’s... nice.” Nat looked as if she wanted to ask something else, but after a second of hesitation, she only shook her head. We ducked into class and sat next to each other, like usual.
#
As the hour passed, I kept sneaking looks at Natalie from the corner of my eye. When had Rajesh seen me with Sean, and why did I feel so nervous about that? It wasn’t like he had also figured out that I had lost my ring and (by the way) I was half-genie. To most people, my encounter with Sean Fabry would have looked totally innocent.
For some reason, though, my gaze kept slipping back to Natalie’s increasingly hard-to-read profile.
“Layla?” Mr. Lopez said, his voice cutting through my reverie. “Are you awake today?”
“Am I...? What?” I blurted. Quiet laughter bloomed all over the room, and I felt my face heat up.
Mr. Lopez crossed his arms over his chest. “I was just asking what you thought of the expert’s interpretation of Petruchio and Katherine’s relationship.”
What expert? Was Mr. Lopez talking about himself? He seemed like the kind of guy who would refer to himself in third-person, and by such a creepy title.
He raised his eyebrows at me, waiting for my answer.
“Of course,” I said, trying to sound as intelligent as possible. “The expert...”
Mr. Lopez frowned. “Layla, you did read last night’s homework, didn’t you?”
At this point, my options were either: a) claim I had read the assignment, but risk humiliating myself further if I answered the question incorrectly or b) confess and--you guessed it!--keep embarrassing myself.
Presented with those two attractive options, I opted for a third path: retreat. I stared resolutely at the surface of my desk, wondering if I could wish myself somewhere warm and cozy, like under Sean’s comforter.
Ew, no. I did not just think that.
“Right.” Mr. Lopez sighed. “Anyone else? Mr. Marshall, how about you?”
I let out a quiet sigh of relief as the attention slid from me, to Devin Marshall. I turned to Natalie, already smirking about Mr. Lopez’s love of bullying, but froze.
Natalie looked even more suspicious than before. She tilted her head at me, a question blaring from her eyes.
For once, I was glad to be in Mr. Lopez’s class, where whispering meant an automatic detention. I could only shrug and look toward our teacher, whose strict policies suddenly didn’t seem so bad.
#
At the sound of the bell at the end of class, my chest tightened. On most days, I practically skipped out, but today, I dragged my feet as Nat and I filtered into the hallway with the rest of the students.
Neither of us spoke, which shouldn’t have been a big deal. We didn’t usually have a giggle-fest on our way out the door, but Nat’s unspoken questions lingered on her face, filling the silence with an unfamiliar suspense.
We usually parted with a casual, “See you at lunch,” but instead we lingered in the hallway.
“What a jerk,” I said, trying to sound casual.
Nat’s mouth curved into a small, tight smile. “Total Napoleon complex. Like, raging.”
“Maybe we should get him some of those guy-shoes with the secret high-heels. You think it would help?”
“Maybe. The heels would have to be pretty high,” Nat replied.
We both laughed, and the tension between us popped like a soap bubble. Natalie’s smile relaxed into something more genuine, and I sighed. “Sorry if I’m being weird,” I said. “I guess the twenty-four-hour thing isn’t totally finished.”
“It’s no big deal. I don’t know why I--”
“Layla! Hey, there you are.” Nat and I both turned to meet a slightly winded Sean Fabry. “I’ve been looking all over,” he said. “I didn’t know where your locker was.”
Nat’s mouth formed a little O as she stared, goggle-eyed, at Sean.
He looked perfectly rested, like he hadn’t missed a wink of sleep. Seeing him so fresh-faced made the dark circles under my eyes throb with resentment.
“Hey,” I said, loading as much warning as I could into that one syllable. I jerked my head toward Natalie, hoping Sean would catch my plea not to say any genie-related stuff.
At that, he finally noticed the love struck, magenta-haired girl beside me. “Hey. You’re Natalie, right?”
She bobbed her head, her eyes turning swimmy. If this went on for another second, I thought she might melt into a puddle right there in the middle of the hallway.
“See you at lunch, Nat!” I said in my most cheerful voice. Then I grabbed Sean by the crook of his arm and stomped away. As we rounded the corner, I caught a glimpse of Natalie straining on her tiptoes to watch us, and my stomach lurched.
When Sean and I ducked into the doorway of an empty classroom, I let him out of my death grip.
“What was that for?” he said, rubbing his arm.
It took an effort to keep my voice down as I replied, “You can not sneak up on me like that.”
“‘Sneak up?’ I wasn’t hiding in your closet or something,” he said. “Besides, I have to talk to you. I’ve got a wish. I mean, I think I have one. I’m pretty sure.”
“Do you, or don’t you?”
“I do.” He took a deep breath. “I wish that--”
“We can’t do it here!” I screeched.
As I heard my voice bounce down the hallway, a heavy feeling poured over me, like gooey mud globbing against my body. It was the knee-wobbling, throat-clenching, palm-sweat-inducing sensation of every head swiveling in my direction.
Awesome. If Sean hadn’t manage
d to tell the entire school that I was a genie, the least I could do was make them all think I was nuts.
While my face had already turned a lovely shade of maroon, Sean’s only response was to stare at me, his brow furrowing.
“It’s all the magic--it makes me dizzy and stuff. When I grant other people’s wishes,” I whispered tightly, “I sort of, like, faint.”
“Seriously?” asked Sean. “I didn’t know chicks actually did that.”
I’m just like the heroine of a romance novel, I thought. Or one of those African goats.
The truth was, I probably wouldn’t pass out, at least not completely, but I couldn’t risk getting even a little wobbly at school. That might earn me a trip to the nurse, along with some awkward questions from Mom and Dad. I knew there was only so far my “bad burrito” excuse would take me.
“What can I say? I’m a delicate flower.” I smirked and glanced around at the still-quiet hallway. Sean might have been used to being the center of attention, but right now, I was praying for the fire alarm to go off.
Sean seemed to sense my discomfort, even though he looked totally at ease. His voice was quiet when he said, “Look, why don’t we just do it at lunch?”
“Can’t. I have plans,” I said.
Oh, I had plans, all right. Instead of my usual fast-food binge with Nat and Rajesh, I’d be online in the school library, buying a plane ticket to Antarctica. I didn’t know if there was a distance limitation on wishes (like some magic thread I could break if I got far enough away), but I was willing to give it a shot.
“What about after school?” He leaned closer as he added, even more faintly, “At my house.”
His last words were so hushed that I barely caught them, but they still made me blush harder. I nodded and said goodbye. As I walked down the hallway, I forced my chin up as I weaved past a sea of interested faces.
A group of short-skirted, spray-tanned girls snorted as I passed. Diana Bukowski stood among them, her slim arms crossed over her chest. She stuck out immediately, and not just because she was the only one who hadn’t turned herself orange. The frown on her face was like a magnet pulling my attention to her.
Just pretend you’re normal, I told myself.